"This is about mosques being a space for women," declared Kadriye
Avci Erdemli, Istanbul's deputy mufti, the city's second most powerful
administrator of the Islamic faith. "When a woman enters a mosque, she
is entering the house of God and she should experience the same sacred
treatment. In front of God, men and women are equal; they have the same
rights to practice their religion."

As part of the "Beautification of Mosques for Women" project, Erdemli
sent 30 teams to visit all of Istanbul's mosques and report back on the
facilities for women. What the teams found was shocking, she claimed.
"Many of the mosques have no toilets for women, no place for women to
wash before praying," Erdemli recounted. "Most of the places allocated
for women were used as storage places, and those that weren't were
usually filthy and freezing cold in winter."

Istanbul's mosques are now under strict instructions to clean up and
provide equal facilities for both men and women by February 2012. But
it's not only a push for cleanliness and improved sanitation that is
underway. The way mosques are arranged is also being changed, according
to Erdemli. "In most mosques, the women's area was divided by a curtain
or a wall, and this is not fair," she elaborated. "They are sacred
places and women have the right to take advantage of their spiritual
feeling as well."

"In front of God, men and women are equal; they have the same rights to practice their religion"

Unlike men, women are not required under Islam to attend a mosque;
their presence is allowed, but, traditionally, female Muslim believers
have prayed more frequently at home. Practices, however, can vary from
country to country, and from mosque to mosque. In Istanbul's mosques, to
reflect the beautification project's goal of equal worship space, "all
the curtains and walls are coming down," Erdemli said. "But segregation
will remain; men and children will pray in front of women."

Starting in late December, inspections will start to check if mosques
are complying with instructions. Since the program began in March,
Erdemli has addressed over 5,000 of the city's imams and religious staff
to explain the theological reason for why mosques are for women as much
as they are for men. On the streets of Istanbul, there appears to be
broad support for the program among religious women. "Sure, it would be
beautiful. It would be much better," said one 30-year-old woman, who
gave her name as Münevver. "In some places, the spaces for women are
clean, but in others they are filthy."

The Diyanet, the state-run administrative body for Turkey's mosques,
has not only given its complete support to the project, but also
provided a theological justification. In November, the head of the
Diyanet, Mehmet Gomez, gave an uncompromising speech, in which he
acknowledged the problem of misogyny in Islam. "There are some wrong,
incomplete, biased interpretations that do not reflect the general
principles of our noble religion," Hürriyet Daily News on December 7
reported Gomez as saying.

All are not happy with this gender revolution. "I hope all these
increasing efforts are not aimed at removing the obstacles for a woman
to come out of her home, and first go out to the mosque, and then to
find a job; all by finding legitimacy within [the Islamic] religion,"
grumbled leading Islamic columnist Ali Bulac on December 3 in the Zaman
newspaper.

The column provoked a storm of reaction. The outcry, interestingly,
was louder coming from practicing Islamic women than from secular
feminists. In her December 6 column for the daily Yeni Safak, Islamic
columnist Ozlem Albayrak termed Bulac's attitude a form of "persecution
against women."

The heated polemic is just the latest example of an important change
in Turkish society. Istar Gozaydin, a law professor at Istanbul's Dogus
University and an expert on the Diyanet, argues that the rise of a new
conservative Islamic middle class on the coattails of the decade-long
rule of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party has eased both
formal and informal restrictions on Islamic women in education and state
workplaces. "We see more and more women getting educated in the
universities, more women in the workplace," Gozaydin said. "They've been
able to become more visible in society. And they want to be a part of
the mosque system as opposed to praying at home."

Although the percentage of women in Turkey's workplaces and
university student bodies may appear relatively low, the figures are
trending upward. A 2010 World Bank report on gender equality reported
that 30 percent of Turkish women work. According to official data for
the same year, women accounted for 44 percent of Turkish university
students.

Erdemli has her sights on the Beautification of Mosques for Women
project becoming an inspiration for the rest of Turkey. She maintains,
though, that its goal is not revolution, but simply bringing the Muslim
faith back to its roots. "All we are doing is taking Islam to back
before it was corrupted and misinterpreted, when women and men were
treated equally," she said.

This article originally appeared at EurasiaNet.org, an Atlantic partner site.